stay, subject to the authority of the american occupation commander, who was of course going to be douglas macarthur. that was a quite substantial qualification of the emperor's role, so, sure, they were saying that the emperor could stay, but it was going to be a different type of emperor than had existed prior to the japanese surrendered. >> one of the reasons that has been lost as to why, we were prepared at that date to accept some role for the japanese emperor. i think that had a great deal to do with our concern about whether the japanese people would indeed laid down their arms -- lay down their arms or whether they would continue at whatever level to fight the occupation. it seemed clear that we basically decapitated the japanese state, that we would be putting the country into chaos, and it would be much better to keep their structure, subject to the authority of the century and we were sending in, rather than simply make the whole place fall apart -- authority of the century and we were sending in rather than simply make the whole place fall apart. once the bombs were released to